A high-stakes jury trial that could reshape the future of social media regulation in the United States is set to kick off Tuesday, pitting 30 U.S. states against tech giant Meta Platforms over allegations that the company intentionally designed its platforms to harm and exploit young users. The case, filed in 2023 by states including California and New York, accuses Meta of widespread violations of federal and state child privacy laws, marking the most significant legal challenge the company has faced to date amid a growing string of court losses over its youth-focused product design.
At the core of the states’ argument is the claim that Meta has deliberately built addictive, harmful features specifically designed to keep children and teenagers engaged on its platforms for as long as possible, prioritizing user growth and revenue over young people’s mental and emotional well-being. The plaintiffs are seeking more than $1 trillion in damages, alongside sweeping mandatory changes to core functionality across Meta’s two largest platforms, Instagram and Facebook. These reforms include eliminating public like counts and infinite scrolling, mandating parental verification for all teenage accounts, overhauling what the states describe as “dopamine-manipulating recommendation algorithms”, removing body-altering photo filters, ending automatic video playback, banning the creation of multiple accounts, and discontinuing ephemeral content such as Instagram Stories.
The states also allege that Meta actively discourages reduced usage among young users, relying on frequent, targeted push notifications to lure minors back to the apps. “Meta chose to exploit” children to grow its user base and expand its bottom line, the lawsuit argues, at a time when the company boasts a total market capitalization of roughly $1.5 trillion. Meta has vigorously denied all allegations, with a company spokesperson stating in a formal response: “We strongly disagree with these allegations and are confident the evidence will show our longstanding commitment to supporting young people.”
The trial will be overseen by Chief U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, a California-based jurist with nearly 20 years of experience on the bench, who previously presided over the high-profile Elon Musk v. Sam Altman dispute and is widely known for her incisive, straightforward judicial approach. The upcoming case follows a recent landmark ruling against Meta in New Mexico, where Judge Bryan Biedscheid imposed a $942 million fine on the company and ordered nearly identical reforms to those sought by the 30 states. In that ruling, Judge Biedscheid made history by labeling Meta’s platform operations a “public nuisance”, comparing the firm’s harmful impact on communities to a polluting factory that inflicts widespread damage on public health. That ruling mandated that Meta eliminate public like counts for users under 18, ban the exchange of nude content between teenagers, and restrict push notifications to limited daytime hours in New Mexico. Meta has announced it will appeal the decision.
While the New Mexico ruling only applies within the state’s borders, a ruling in favor of the 30 states would require nationwide changes to Meta’s platforms, as the plaintiffs represent approximately two-thirds of the U.S. population. A defeat for Meta would force fundamental, industry-altering changes to how millions of young people interact with social media across the country.
The debate around features like public like counts underscores the growing body of evidence linking core Meta platform design to youth mental health harm. Likes have been a central feature of Meta’s platforms since the company’s early days as Facebook, and remain the primary mechanism for user engagement across nearly all social networks. But research conducted over the past decade, including Meta’s own internal research, has tied engagement metrics like like counts to rising rates of depression, body dysmorphia, and loneliness among young users. Meta’s internal documents, more than 2 million of which have been turned over to legal teams for the 30 states, show the company has long known that likes drive “social comparison”—the practice of measuring one’s self-worth against curated, idealized content posted by other users. This effect on Instagram, the company’s own research found, is linked to “increased loneliness, worse body image, and negative mood or affect” among teenage users.
Testimony from earlier youth-focused cases has further illustrated these harms. Earlier this year, a young plaintiff named Kaley who won a lawsuit against Meta described creating dozens of separate Instagram and YouTube accounts as a nine-year-old to like her own posts, chasing external validation that ultimately left her clinically depressed by age 10. As Judge Biedscheid noted in his landmark ruling, the first to declare a social media company a public nuisance, Meta’s decade-long operating model has contributed directly to the growing youth mental health crisis across the U.S. Now, attorneys for 30 states will argue that Judge Gonzalez Rogers should reach the same conclusion and impose sweeping changes that could redefine social media regulation for the entire country.